CAIRO (Reuters) – Hamas stated on Saturday it has misplaced contact with a bunch answerable for 5 Israeli hostages being held captive within the Gaza Strip resulting from Israeli bombardment.
The Palestinian Islamist group believes the hostages have been killed throughout an Israeli raid, Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, was quoted as saying in an announcement on the group’s Telegram channel.
Reuters was not in a position to confirm the report and there was no fast response from the Israeli authorities.
Israel says Hamas seized round 240 hostages when it killed 1,200 folks in a rampage round southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Hamas stated final month that greater than 60 hostages have been lacking resulting from Israeli air strikes. There was no affirmation of that quantity however Israel believes that 20 or extra of some 130 hostages nonetheless held in Gaza are useless.
The militants launched greater than 100 hostages as a part of a week-long ceasefire settlement on the finish of November that included the discharge of 240 Palestinian girl and youngsters from Israeli jails.
Households of the hostages held a brand new rally on Saturday, demanding that Israel take into account releasing senior Palestinian militants from jail in any new swap deal.
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Adam Makary and Ahmed Tolba; Modifying by Tomasz Janowski, Mike Harrison and Philippa Fletcher)
